Different isn’t Good or Bad, is just Different

I am using GNOME3 since day one but I still cannot recognize an application if is a GNOME App with a quick look.

Windows XP had one of the very best theme ever created (for its time). The strong blue bars with the large and high contrast controls managed with a magic way to be acceptable and welcome from the majority of -hundred of millions- users. You just need 1/25 of the second to recognize a Windows XP app.

Mac OSX is Apple ..and that’s enough! Even some very specif Linux tutorials (web-services programming) are written in Mac OSX applications in the official documentation from their authors ..what for? Apple keeps a discreet theme but is just Apple..

GNOME3 makes excessive use of a light grey that pass by unattended and without being ugly isn’t either attractive. In a few words it just has not a personality. For the class of the GNOME designers and the level of the project, GTK Apps look poor (visually).

The point is that bad or good, GNOME3 needs to be different. Neutral is something that none likes, none bothers.

Selection Toolbars in GNOME 3.8

From GNOME 3.6 and beyond designers are trying to give some personality to GNOME. That is easy to understand by looking the mockups that without going to extreme, they make some more use of colors and lines that will give GNOME Apps some “noise”.

From mockups to action, in GNOME 3.8 will get some colorful selections:

Looks very good! In Boxes application screenshot, gray text on light blue background is unreadable but I guess it’s going to be fixed as it is in Documents.

http://profiles.google.com/bwat47 Brandon Watkins

window’s xp’s theme was never “good”

alex285

Nothing is good to everyone, but we are talking about a theme of 2001, that still looks at least Ok.

Eigenvektorz

Absolutely agree. Every time I re-installed it (or even used someone else’s computer), I did two things: switch to the Windows Classic theme (which, together with XP’s colourful but nice icons actually became quite classy) and turn on Cleartype (which helps the Windows experience tremendously).

slow reader

ehm.. what?

Eigenvektorz

Ugh. I had hoped they had different colours, at least… I have a huge issue in Activities: I sit in front of it multiple seconds trying to figure out which grey mess is the application that I wanted to switch to. Of course, there would be the easy way of just overlaying the windows with their respective icons … but having more colourful windows would be another good first step.